1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and an image forming system, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus in which a replaceable unit is mounted on an apparatus main body so as to be replaceable.
2. Background Art
An image forming apparatus In which a unit including consumable goods can be easily replaced by another unit by a user has been known.
When the unit replaced by the user is a product other than a perfect product for the image forming apparatus, the performance of the image forming apparatus cannot be sufficiently exhibited, for instance, the quality of an image is deteriorated, an operation cannot be assured, or an inconvenience such as a failure may arise. These disadvantages arise, because the image forming apparatus controls an image forming process by considering the characteristics of toner, the characteristics of an image carrier, charge voltage, cleaning characteristics and fixing characteristics or the like.
Thus, in order to maintain the quality of the image of the image forming apparatus and prevent inconveniences, JP-A-10-133528 discloses a method in which a data carrier for holding the consumption quantity data of consumable goods is provided in perfect replaceable parts, and a quantity of consumption detected by a consumption quantity detecting part provided in an apparatus main body is compared with the consumption quantity data held by the data carrier to discriminate whether or not the consumable goods is supplied to the perfect replaceable parts.
Further, JP-A-6-149051 discloses that a storing unit for storing preset code data is provided in a toner cartridge and when a copying machine main body side cannot read the preset code data from the storing unit, a copying operation is prohibited.
Further, JP-A-2001-100598 discloses a method in which if empty information written in a cartridge is read from a cartridge to which the toner is supplied when the exhaustion of the toner is detected, an alarm is displayed and a printing operation is prohibited.
Further, Japanese Patent No. 2602341 discloses a method in which the count of formed images is stored in a memory of a cartridge and when a preset completion count showing the number of images that can be formed in the cartridge is equal to the count of the formed images, the cartridge is unable to be used after that.
Further, Japanese Patent No. 3476704 discloses a method in which when it is decided that a mounted toner supplying vessel is not appropriate by a bi-directional communication between a vessel side communication unit of the toner supplying vessel and a main body side communication unit of an apparatus main body and a selecting and inputting unit selects to continuously perform a supplying process by neglecting that the toner supplying vessel is inappropriate, an image forming condition having a level lower than that of a proper image forming condition is set to easily detect that the toner supplying vessel is inappropriate.